Sjelden eller aldri har vel en preses i Den norske kirke
uttalt seg så desorientert, forbeholdent, nedlatende og autoritært som det
Fykse Tveit gjorde på Nyhetsmorgen på NRK radio i morges.
Med Sidsel Wolds «på autopilot»-stemmes velsignelse, (og
forførende og duperende barnestemme). Hun har gjort seg til uskyldig alibi og
trådfører for islam nå, i lang tid, og lykkes nå svært godt, på NRK, også i den situasjonen som nå er på Gaza og
hvor ansvaret kan tilbakeføres til Hamas, «broderskapets» forlengede arm, begge
organisasjoner betegnes som terrororganisasjoner av tungtvektige land over hele
verden.
Preses begynner sin forkynnelse under Wolds auspinciens
med: «Hvis kristensionisme er … så er … «.
Med dette har preses i utgangspunktet gardert seg inntil det
pinlige: Han snakker hypotetisk i den tro at det på et senere tidspunkt kan fri
ham fra det han sier og mener og redde ham for seriøs og saklig kritikk. Han gjør sin rygg fri med et forbehold, altså.
Det vitner om stor usikkerhet, indre spenninger, diskvalifikasjoner for jobben.
Tveit og Wold gjør seg til talspersoner for palestinere og
Palestina (et land som ikke fins, men som skal trumfes og manipulers gjennom (til
bindende forslag) av bl a FN). De får det til å høres ut som om staten Israel
fordriver kristne arabere i Israel – uten å sette nedgangen i antall
palestinske kristne i Israel i sammenheng med de strategiene de palestinske
organisasjonene har fulgt nå i flere tiår, strategier som i praksis ikke bare
fordriver de kristne araberne, men også de ikke-arabisk kristne, som f eks i
Betlehem.
Hverken Vold eller Tveit makter å trekke inn islam i dette
bildet. Det de tegner er derfor ikke bare et svært utilstrekkelig bilde av
situasjonen i sin helhet; de tegner i stedet et bilde som fortegner eller
forfalsker virkeligheten og villeder store deler av befolkningen. Særlig den
kristne delen av befolkningen, og den delen av kristne som egentlig eller
opprinnelig var saklig islamkritiske, men som nå ser ut til å sette
ettergivenhet som et kriterium på den høyeste tro og det eneste avgjørende
emosjonelle credo, på Den norske kirke befaling, fra øverste hold.
Det er nesten for vondt til å være sant.
Nyhetsmorgen med bla Sidsel Wold og preses Fykse Tveit – en
mest mulig ensidig fremstilling av krigen: Tidspunkt: 220124, kl 57. 14:
https://radio.nrk.no/serie/nyhetsmorgen
I går holdt F Tveit en preken i Viktoriakirken på
Oljeberget. … Wold: til storstilt bakgrunnsmusikk: Det kalles inn til bønn på
Oljeberget. … (prekenen, gjengis delvis, på engelsk … det er halvtomt i den
vakre kirken, for det tynnes i rekkene blant de kristne palestinerne, de som
ikke orker å leve under israelsk okkupasjon, flytter, og de som er igjen, føler
seg forlatt av den kristne verden, spesielt av de evangelikale kristne og
kristensionistene, som støtter Israels politikk blindt. … particular here in
Palestine has always been against the interest of the christian community … Vestens
innblanding i Midt-Østen og spesielt her i Palestina, har alltid virket imot
interessene til de kristne her, sier pastor … til Nrk.
Olav Fykse Tveit mener at denne delen av kristendommen er
farlig: Ja, hvis kristensionismen betyr at man meina at vi vet ka Gud vil, …
hvilken som helst virkemiddel, kan bli brukt, for å oppnå dette, eh, det er
fali uansett kaslags tema det er, men det bli særlig falig her for det er en
veldig blanding av politikk og religion, og makt, sier Norges ledende biskop,
som besøkte palestinske kirkeledere i helgen.
Wold: I Norge, men spesielt i USA, er de
kristensionistiske miljøene sterke. De mest fundamnetalistiske ber for dommedag
og harmageddon og en storkrig som skal bare vei for en ny religiøs verdensorden
– for kristensionistene er jødene en del av guds plan og Det lovede land, mens
palestinske muslimer og kristne ikke er det … Tveit: … Eh, det er jo dessverre
bevegelsa i USA som endo til sie at ja, vi skal bruke våpen, for å gjennomføre
denne kristensionistiske tanken - (kirkeklokker dunder i bakgrunnen her) og da
bli det virkelig å bli farlig.
Wold: Også kristensionister bør respektere folkeretten …
?
-Ja, altså, folkerett og den internasjonale orden som vi
heldig vis fikk etter annen verdenskrig, med menneskerettar og likeverd,
fantastiske uttrykk for det eg meiner er innholdet i min kristne tro, og hvis
det kan realiserer i er verden som er mangfoldig … og som har gjennomlevd
kriger der man sa at krig er synd, etterpå, kirkene sa det, og …
De norske biskopene uttalte seg om denne retningen
innenfor kristendommen for tre år siden … og da var det jo særlig fordi det er
en bevegelse som gjer seg gjeldande internasjonalt, og i forhold til di kristne
søsken som vi har her og som sier at her kommer det nokre kristne og sie atte
vi skal egentlig ikkje bo her, vi skal forsvinne, og da må eg si at nei, vi kan
ikkje si det som kristne, det er en en kamp om kristendommens sjel …
Kommentar:
Både Wold og preses begår grove synder her: De tillegger
Allah den kristne Guds egenskaper, hvilke Allah ikke har og heller ikke kan ha,
se under.
Slik underskriver de på Hamas’s virkelighetsoppfatning,
verdisyn og gudssyn. De tilfører Allah egenskaper som islam selv nekter for at
Allah har. De forstår ikke at Palestina betraktes som en waqf, gitt alle
muslimer som forpliktelser på Allah’s kommando og vilje. De forstår ikke at
Allah vil ha kontinuerlig jihad for islam; de tror at Allah kan være en person
slik Gud er i den dogmatiske judeo-kristne tro og tradisjon. De forstår ikke at
jihad og waqf er en uforbeholden og obligatorisk plikt, et dypere religiøst
anliggende, ikke bare et «sekulært» folkerettsanliggende.
De har dermed underlagt seg Allah’s kommandoer, Hamas konstitusjon,
som bygger på islam som en alltid overordnet og uforanderlig Konstitusjon. De
flytter dermed alt personlig ansvar fra Gud og mennesket over på islam og Allah,
en gud som ikke kan være personlig, og som ikke vil vite av Kjærlighet, for da
ville han bli bundet, hvilket han ikke kan bli, utover sin vilje, til enhver
tid).
Wold og Fykse Tveit snakker nå om «visse kristne» antakelig
for å vise at de ikke kjemmer alle kristne over en kam, og for at de ikke vil krenke
kristendommen som sådan og per se. De gjør da det samme som mange islamkritikere
gjør: De nyanserer, de snakker om «visse muslimer», ikke alle etc. Men det Wold
og Fykse Tveit da gjør, når det kommer til kristentroen, er å begå en grov
synd, et grovt kategorimistak. De skiller nettopp ikke mellom den kristne gud
og islams gud. De vil ha oss alle til å tro at det dreier seg om identiske
guder! De tror i tillegg og logisk følgeriktig på «overguden», ikke den
judeo-kristne Gud. Det vil si: De tror jo ikke på Gud overhodet. De ser ingen
vesensforskjell på kristen-jødisk-tro og islam. De gjør det inkompatible
kompatibelt ved fiat, som firdeister, og dermed som hypermagikere med
det fundamentale credo at «de servilt betinget korrkete emosjoner» er det hele,
og ikke stort mer.
De gjør seg dermed til hedninger, for å «please» Allah og
alle muslimer. De sluker alle islamske svisker og selvfølgeligheter, samtidig
som de spytter ut hele kristentroen og jødedommen. Et angrep på
kritentsionistene, slik de fremstiller og former det, og forutsetter, kan da
like gjerne ses på som et angrep på Israel, se link.
Se denne svært opplysende og klargjørende her:
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2011/03/den-fataleog-evige-forskjellen.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2020/12/angrep-bispene-kristensionister-eller.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2020/10/jagland-listhaug-og-sommerfelt-helt.html
Se hva media skrev, bl a:
«Praying for Armageddon» har upåklagelig timing
Oppsiktsvekkende dokumentar skildrer hvordan amerikanske
kristne fundamentalister jobber effektivt for et snarlig Armageddon i Israel, okt. 2023,
Sist oppdatert 19. okt. 2023, 12:48
Det er ingen hemmelighet at den evangeliske bevegelsen på
ytre høyre fløy i USA bærer på en visjon om en snarlig apokalypse i Jerusalem.
Slik de leser Bibelen, vil det bane veien for det nye
kristne tusenårsriket.
https://vink.aftenposten.no/artikkel/y62PVE/filmanmeldelse-praying-for-armageddon-vil-skape-bolger
I Samtiden finer vi dette:
«Praying for Armageddon» går rett inn i blodbadet som
utspiller seg i Gaza. Helaftensdokumentaren skildrer ytterliggående evangeliske
kristne i USA, og hvilken innflytelse disse nyter i Washington.
– De tolker bibelen bokstavelig og ser det som sitt ansvar
at Armageddon-profetien oppfylles, sier regissør Tonje Hessen Schei, med
referanse til endetidsforestillingene i Johannes’ åpenbaring.
– Israel spiller en nøkkelrolle, for det er der de mener
dommedag vil skje, fortsetter hun overfor NTB.
– De mener de må framskynde verdens undergang. Da vil Jesus
komme tilbake, og de vil få evig liv.
B.i.b.l.e.
Strategisk i miljøet er Texas-pastoren John Hagee. Han leder
«megakirken» Christians United for Israel (CUFI), som teller over 10 millioner
medlemmer. Dette er mannen som definerer «bible» som akronym for «basic
information before leaving Earth» – «basalinfo før du forlater Jorden».
– Idet vi startet produksjonen i 2015, anså vi Hagee som for
ekstrem til å være en viktig politisk spiller, forteller Schei (52).
Det endret seg med Trump-inntoget året etter.
– Vi så hvor instrumentell Hagee ble for valget. Så, i 2018,
medvirket han sentralt da Trump åpnet den kontroversielle ambassaden i
Jerusalem. Da gikk det kaldt nedover ryggen på meg, for jeg skjønte vi sto
overfor noe mye større. Det religiøse høyre får stadig mer makt.
https://samtiden.no/notiser/2023/kinoklar-dokumentarfilm-kristenfundamentalister-priser-israels-krigforing
Se denne: Evangelikale kristne bidrar med store penger og
politisk påvirkningskraft til støtte for Israel. Men støtten er ikke
uproblematisk. Se «Til dommedag» i NRK TV: https://tv.nrk.no/program/KOID28004120
Kommentar: Dokumentaren var lagt opp på gammelt venstreside-taktiske-vis:
Man begynner med de uskyldigste ting, for så å sette inn dødsstøtet på slutten:
Vil kristensosialister bruke vold? Vil de at millioner skal dø? Etc. Det er som
om Mads Gilbert – som type - skulle ha redigert denne dokumentaren, men de som
så den, så og hørte jo at det ikke var tilfelle, at man virkelig ville vold, at
f eks Israel var nødt for å angripe Iran, osv, selv om en av hovedpersonene i
produksjonen holdt seg bokstavelig til Bibelen og profetienes voldsomme
språkbruk. Selvsagt var ikke hovedpersonen personlig for en slik kosmisk krig
med så mye lidelse som tekstene skulle tilsi – fordi tekstene selv jo er av
symbolsk karakter. Men dette tar selvsagt ikke filmskaperne hensyn til, (selv
om de lar hovedpersonen gjøre det. Inntrykket som forsøkes skapt er at kristne
sionister er voldparate krigshissere og normativt ekstreme).
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2012/11/kristendommen-er-heldigvis-klart.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2012/04/allah-er-ikke-hellig.html
Jeg ber og formaner om å lese følgende: Se denne, fyldige:
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2023/05/om-bispene-og-den-kjnnslige-posering.html
Bør kirken ekskludere?
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2023/11/den-avgjrende-krigen-om-vare-sinn-og.html
http://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2011/01/islamiseringen-av-det-kollektive.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2010/11/islamiseringen-av-kirken.html
Visse kristne vil brenne ytringsfriheten:
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2023/02/kristenfundamentalisten-eller.html
http://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2022/12/torp-med-egyptisk-ambassadr-i.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2023/03/islamofobien-som-splitter-kristne-na-i.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2021/09/jan-age-torp-intervjuer-biskop-atle.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2020/08/mellomkirkelig-rad-et-rad-besatt-av.html
Om «waqf of palestina», om ting media ikke våger å nevne:
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2023/03/bnnerop-og-eiendomsrett-til-landet.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2023/10/islamkritikk-na-i-en-krigstid.html
Hva har Torp med «bamsegutt-saken» å gjøre?
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2023/11/bamsegutt-saken-et-symptom-pa-noe-annet.html
Litt mer generelt, men desto viktigere:
Paktene i bibelen gir hverken jøder eller kristne rett til å
erobre nytt land og ingen kristen eller jøde kan kreve å bi hørt på at erobret –
hvis da erobret i det hele tatt - skal tilhøre religionen til evig tid –
og at gud forbyr de troende å si fra seg slikt erobret land. (Jeg skriver
religionen, ikke jødene eller de kristne).
Men ikke slik i slam. Ikke slik for Hamas på Gaza-stripen.
Og heller ikke slik for noen rettroende muslim.
Hamas formål er få hele Israel ut av Israel, alle jøder. (Og
ingen jøde skal finnes på de såkalte muslimske territoriene). Og de som slutter
opp om denne målsettingen, som forveksles med et guddommelig gitt faktum en
gang for alle, kan smykke seg med at de er muslimske mer enn de fleste andre
muslimer, som tenker annerledes (og derfor ikke er sterkt-troende, i
islamistenes øyne).
Høres dette kjent ut? Høres det uskyldig ut? Er det ikke
slik at de fleste frihetskjempere nettopp ofrer liv, eiendom og lemmer for
nasjonen, folket eller ideologien (eller religionen)? Er ikke henvisningen
eller begrunnelsen i islam kun «en metode» eller «en strategi» - helt fristilt
far religionen og Allah - man bruker for å oppnå i og for seg helt verdslige
mål, mål vi kan kjenne oss igjen med, og som vi derfor på alle måter kan støtte
– ifølge bare den akk så altfor nøytrale, uguddommelige, objektive og
rettferdige folkeretten?
Også nordmenn stolte på og trodde at Gud vil hjelpe Norge
til å vinne krigen mot nazismen – og vi var villige til å ofre – alt, om så
var. Så hvorfor skulle ikke vi nå la muslimer på Gaza, og Hamas, kjempe for sin
tro og religion, med religiøse argumenter og begrunnelser. Også nordmenn tydde
til det som ble kalt terror. Fordi det alltid er legitimt for den angrepne part
å svare med terror på terror. Terror kan med andre ord være legitimt, (og det
er dette Hams skjuler seg bok, i sitt falske, retoriske selv, - dette pluss at
religionen eller Allah faktisk ikke bare aksepterer vold, men påbyr den, i kampen
for den «evige» og forbeholdsløse kamp for å utbre islam. Slik at hele verden
en dag skal underkaste seg islam, og logisk de underkaste seg muslimene.
Var det ikke slik biskop Veiteberg trodde? Hun var en venn
av palestinerne. Hun var medlem av komiteen.
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2023/10/terrororganisasjon-ferdig-snakka-punktum.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2021/04/biskop-veiteberg-overrasker-og-dagen.html
Går det an å inngå pakter med islam? Et eksempel, som følges
den dag i dag, og som Arafat brukte under Oslo-forhandlingene og en pakistansk
president brukte på for rundt 20 år siden, er:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_al-Hudaybiya
Bare dette faktum i seg selv, burde få noen og enhver til å
spisse ørene når det nå settes vilkår for Israel til å godkjenne en
to-statsløsning når stridighetene ventelig vil stoppe på Gaza, (og når Hamas
forhåpentlig er nedkjempet, hvis mulig å nedkjempe en organisasjon noen gang,
da, siden Allah jo ikke kan diskuteres eller gjøres til et aspekt av varig fred
og forhandlinger med vantro kuffar.
Og det er dette lille faktum folk ikke vil forstå. Og det i
seg selv er jo bare sørgelig og ufattelig. Så lenge folk og bisper ikke lenger
forstår at Allah ikke er Gud og at gud ikke Allah, vil det aldri bli fred i
Midt-Østen.
- There will be a truce between
both parties for ten years.
- Whoever flees to Muhammad from
the Quraysh without the permission of his guardian will be sent back to
the Quraysh, but whoever comes to the Quraysh from the Muslims will not be
sent back.
- Whoever wishes to enter into a
covenant with Muhammad will be allowed to do so, and whoever wishes to
enter into a covenant with the Quraysh will be allowed to do so.
- The Muslims will return to
Medina without performing the pilgrimage but will be allowed the following
year and would stay in Mecca for three days during which time the Quraysh
will vacate the city. The Muslims will carry no weapons except
sheathed swords.[15]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_al-Hudaybiya
Og nå over til det viktigste:
I jødedom og kristendom er alle pakter eller testamenter
bygget på en personlig relasjon. I islam er dette umulig. Det personlige
elementet, grunnpremisset i alle paktene, finnes ikke i islam.
I islam er Allah’s vilje det nærmeste en troende kan komme selve
guddommen. Allah’s hellige vrede og vilje, blir den eneste personlig relasjonen
den troende kan ha til guddommen i islam. Allah betraktes ikke – kan ikke
betraktes – som en person, og dermed blir det ikke snakke om denne gudens hellige
karakter eller personlighet heller, slik vi ser det i jødedom og kristendom, i
den judeokristne tradisjon og teologi, (med sine iboende oppfatninger av det
personlige). Det fins intet grunnleggende Jeg-Du-forhold mennesker og Gud
imellom i islam. Allah kommanderer, «tha’s all».
Paktene og løftene i jødedom og kristendom bygger på et
Jeg-Du-forhold, et forhold mellom to parter, et forhold som utløser ansvar, et
forhold som respekterer menneskets frihet til å vurdere, analyser og velge
selv. Det er derfor feil når Wold hevder at kristne følger løftene i bla Apokalypsen
blindt (og bokstavelig). Det foreligger ingen absolutt plikt til å følge
Skriften eller Bibelen blindt eller bokstavelig i alle forhold. I islam,
derimot, fratar Allah muslimer muligheten for ikke å følge Allah’s bud blindt,
og dette kommer tydelig til uttrykk nå Hamas hevder at hele landet og nasjonen
Israel de facto ikke har noen rett til å være der (innenfor internasjonalt
erkjente grenser).
Hverken Wold eller Fykse Tveit orker å ense, eller innse,
dette aspektet ved og begrunnelsen for Hamas angrep på Israel. De trekker
derfor sine konklusjoner på sviktende grunnlag og lar sneverheten gjelde for
sannhet, i stedet for å la et videre perspektiv på tingene gjelde for sannhet.
De gjør seg derfor begge skyldig i å bygge på illusjoner og
partiskhet i stedet for på et bredere spekter, mer bredspektret syn på
virkeligheten – og ideologiene og troene.
Wold og Fykse Tveit later ikke til å ha fått med seg at
Hamas hevder en guddommelig rett til Israel, som da anses for å være et waqf,
et område som ingen muslim kan avstå eller gå inn for å avstå. Det er som om
hverken Allah eller Gud eksisterer for Vold og Fykse Tveit. De må derfor
fundamentere seg på egne emosjoner, og tilfeldige samfunnsmoter og tenkemåter, formet
via antiamerikanske og antikapitalistiske stemninger spesielt etablert etter
1960-70-årene, ikke på guddommelig juss, slik f eks Hamas gjør. De ser ikke at
det her foreligger to fullstendig inkompatible virkelighetsforestillinger.
Hva innebærer dette? Hvilke konsekvenser har dette
gudsbildet, dette gudssynet og slike gudsforestillinger for verdisynet, menneskesynet
og virkelighetsoppfatningen generelt?
Vi ser dette tydelig i den islamske oppfatningen av hva
erobret land i Allah’s navn vil ha, for all fremtid. Erobret land kalles waqf,
et begrep vi har skrevet om tidligere, se linkene. Et waqf kan aldri oppgis,
fordi det er Allah som har forordnet det, dvs kommandert det, selve hjemmelen
for å erobre land. Ingen kan sette til side en kommando fra Allah og alle
muslimer er forpliktet på kommandoen.
Dette i sterkt kontrast til i jødedom og kristendom. Riktig
nok kan vi se i jødedommen at Gud, JHWE, kommanderer israelittene til å innta
Kaanan-landet, med dette vare en engangsforpliktelse, eller tilskyndelse, basert
på en ensidig gitt pakt med israelittene, knyttet til et løfte, den gang. Israelittene
ble «evig» forpliktet» en gang, og siden aldri mer. I islam er det omvendt;
muslimer er forpliktet ikke bare engang, med alle ganger for alltid.
I jødedommen inngår JHWE en rekke løftespakter med
israelittene. De kan være knyttet til
forbehold – «hvis dere gjør, så skal …» eller til «ensidig» pakter uten forbehold
overfor israelittene. Se vår forrige postering:
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2024/01/venstresidens-nye-ateistiske.html
Paktene – som forutsetter to ansvarlige personer – blir i
Bibelen beskrevet etter mønster av andre verdslige pakter i Mist-Østen den
gang. Disse regulerte forholdet mellom de større og meget mer mektige herskerne
eller kongene og de som underla seg disse som vasaller, i den hensikt å sikre
seg beskyttelse, og dermed «frihet».
Poenget er bare at Israel ikke kunne og ikke ville betegne
sike konger som styrende, over seg, i prinsippet. Jødene eller israelitten
kunne ikke underlegge seg som vasall under andre konger enn sin egen konge,
nemlig JHWE, dvs Gud. Gud var israels Konge, ingen annen verdslig eller
guddommelig kraft eller makt.
Israel hadde dermed en personlig relasjon med et personlig tilbedelsesobjekt
å forholde seg til, ikke til en verdslig herre, eller et verdslig prinsipp, men
altså til Personen i høyete potens og virkelighet. Den allmektige, allestedsnærværende.
Den evig nåderike Frelser som garantert ville innfri sin løfter.
Legg merke til at denne:
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2021/11/bislett-game-over-for-denne-gang.html
Se årstall 1000 i denne:
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2022/11/islam-angrep-pa-dar-al-harb-krigens-hus.html
http://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2017/12/eid-id-klesdrakt-og-islamsk-ekspansjon.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2021/08/den-kristne-hypermagi-og-den-vestlige.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2015/01/om-hvorfor-det-gar-sa-galt-om-islam-og.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2019/02/er-du-spr-kan-du-avtale-gud.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2023/03/bnnerop-og-eiendomsrett-til-landet.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2019/10/10-synden-og-syndene-i-islam-og.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2020/08/mellomkirkelig-rad-et-rad-besatt-av.html
http://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2013/02/vil-du-ha-amnesty.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2012/09/norge-trygghetens-hus-dar-al-amin.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2017/11/terrorangrep-pa-muslimer-av-muslimer-i.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2020/10/islamske-angrep-pa-vesten-fra-632-til.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2020/12/angrep-bispene-kristensionister-eller.html
http://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2020/07/kirker-og-katedraler-i-brann.html
http://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2022/11/islam-angrep-pa-dar-al-harb-krigens-hus.html
https://neitilislam.blogspot.com/2015/11/angrepet-pa-paris-og-markedsfringen-av.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waqf
Hvilke guddommelige hjemler – som selvsagt overstyrer Wold
og Fykse Tveit - finner vi så i islam?
-
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/01/jihad-simply-refers-to-a-struggle-muslims-use-the-term-to-discuss-a-spiritual-struggle-against-ones-vices
“Jihad
simply refers to a ‘struggle.’ Muslims use the term to discuss a spiritual
struggle against one’s vices.” Jan 14, 2023 4:00 pm By Robert Spencer 12 Comments
This
“Muslim American” letter-writer is angry that Trevor Bickford’s attack on two
cops in Times Square was described as a “jihad.” Zane Chowdhry says that
“commentators should avoid co-opting Islamic terms like jihad without nuance.”
However,
Bickford himself may have used the word. We know that he left behind a manifesto which was not published in full, in
which he calls upon his family members to convert to Islam and refers to his
Marine brother as having joined the “enemy.” The term “jihad” may have come
from this missive. Also, this writer Zane Chowdhry completely ignores the
martial understanding of jihad in Islam’s tradition and history.
Shafi’i
school: A Shafi’i
manual of Islamic law that was certified in 1991 by the clerics at Al-Azhar
University, one of the leading authorities in the Islamic world, as a reliable
guide to Sunni orthodoxy, stipulates about jihad that “the caliph makes war
upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians…until they become Muslim or pay the
non-Muslim poll tax.” It adds a comment by Sheikh Nuh Ali Salman, a Jordanian
expert on Islamic jurisprudence: the caliph wages this war only “provided that
he has first invited [Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians] to enter Islam in
faith and practice, and if they will not, then invited them to enter the social
order of Islam by paying the non-Muslim poll tax (jizya)…while remaining in
their ancestral religions.” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.8).
Of course,
there is no caliph today, and hence the oft-repeated claim that the Islamic
State (ISIS) and other jihad groups are waging jihad illegitimately, as no
state authority has authorized their jihad. But they explain their actions in
terms of defensive jihad, which needs no state authority to call it, and
becomes “obligatory for everyone” (‘Umdat al-Salik, o9.3) if a Muslim
land is attacked. The end of the defensive jihad, however, is not peaceful
coexistence with non-Muslims as equals: ‘Umdat al-Salik specifies
that the warfare against non-Muslims must continue until “the final descent of
Jesus.” After that, “nothing but Islam will be accepted from them, for taking
the poll tax is only effective until Jesus’ descent” (o9.8).
Hanafi
school: A Hanafi
manual of Islamic law repeats the same injunctions. It insists that people must
be called to embrace Islam before being fought, “because the Prophet so
instructed his commanders, directing them to call the infidels to the faith.”
It emphasizes that jihad must not be waged for economic gain, but solely for
religious reasons: from the call to Islam “the people will hence perceive that
they are attacked for the sake of religion, and not for the sake of taking
their property, or making slaves of their children, and on this consideration
it is possible that they may be induced to agree to the call, in order to save
themselves from the troubles of war.”
However,
“if the infidels, upon receiving the call, neither consent to it nor agree to
pay capitation tax [jizya], it is then incumbent on the Muslims to call upon
God for assistance, and to make war upon them, because God is the assistant of
those who serve Him, and the destroyer of His enemies, the infidels, and it is
necessary to implore His aid upon every occasion; the Prophet, moreover,
commands us so to do.” (Al-Hidayah, II.140)
Maliki
school: Ibn Khaldun
(1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a Maliki legal
theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he
notes that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because
of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert
everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in
charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam
is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.”
Hanbali
school: The great
medieval theorist of what is commonly known today as radical or fundamentalist
Islam, Ibn Taymiyya (Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, 1263-1328), was a Hanbali
jurist. He directed that “since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since
its aim is that the religion is God’s entirely and God’s word is uppermost,
therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must
be fought.”
This is
also taught by modern-day scholars of Islam. Majid Khadduri was an Iraqi
scholar of Islamic law of international renown. In his book War and
Peace in the Law of Islam, which was published in 1955 and remains one of
the most lucid and illuminating works on the subject, Khadduri says this about
jihad:
The state
which is regarded as the instrument for universalizing a certain religion must
perforce be an ever expanding state. The Islamic state, whose principal
function was to put God’s law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the
dominant reigning ideology over the entire world….The jihad was therefore
employed as an instrument for both the universalization of religion and the
establishment of an imperial world state. (P. 51)
Imran Ahsan
Khan Nyazee, Assistant Professor on the Faculty of Shari’ah and Law of the
International Islamic University in Islamabad. In his 1994 book The
Methodology of Ijtihad, he quotes the twelfth century Maliki jurist Ibn
Rushd: “Muslim jurists agreed that the purpose of fighting with the People of
the Book…is one of two things: it is either their conversion to Islam or the
payment of jizyah.” Nyazee concludes: “This leaves no doubt that the primary
goal of the Muslim community, in the eyes of its jurists, is to spread the word
of Allah through jihad, and the option of poll-tax [jizya] is to be exercised
only after subjugation” of non-Muslims.
Despite the
misleading and incomplete nature of this explanation of jihad, it is accepted
far beyond the scope of one letter to the editor in one paper.
“Letter:
Word ‘jihad’ often misused,” by Zane Chowdhry, The Columbian, January 12, 2023:
As a Muslim
American, I was deeply upset to hear about the New Year’s Eve knife attack by
Mr. Trevor Bickford in Times Square. In the days following the violence, news
agencies began to report that Mr. Bickford was inspired by “Islamic extremism”
and wanted to “carry out jihad.”
Contrary to
its popular use in the media, jihad simply refers to a “struggle.” Muslims use
the term foremost to discuss a spiritual struggle against one’s passions and
vices. The physical version of this struggle is limited in the Quran to only
defensive measures to “fight in the cause of Allah against those who fight
against you, but do not transgress” (2:191). The actions that Mr. Bickford took
on New Year’s Eve were far from either of these definitions of the struggles
that jihad entails. Commentators should avoid co-opting Islamic terms like
jihad without nuance. Cavalier use of these terms distorts their connotations
and makes the religion that millions of Muslims practice peacefully seem like a
grave threat….
-
En gang muslimsk, alltid muslimsk land, waqf:
Israel,
Saudi Arabia and claim that once land is Muslim, that land is always Muslim
Ira RifkinComments, Middle East, Ira Rifkin, Godbeat, Academia, Journalism, Israel, Islam-Muslims
The Jewish
state of Israel and the Sunni Islamic kingdom of Saudi Arabia have a
complicated relationship. Official diplomatic relations between the two are
non-existent. Yet unofficial contacts not only exist but appear to be thriving
Why?
Because for all the bad blood between them, both consider Shiite Iran the
greater threat. It's one of those enemy-of-my-enemy hookups.
Israel
would love the relationship to play out officially and in public as a grand
sign to the world of its desired acceptance as a sovereign Jewish nation in the
heart of the Muslim Middle East.
The Saudi
monarchy has a more complex agenda, however.
Whatever
its political goals, the Saudi royals also must mollify their nation's
ultra-traditional religious establishment, the staunch support of which has
allowed the descendants of King Abdulaziz Al Saud to rule over the bulk of the
Arabian Peninsula since the nation's founding in 1932.
Saudi
Arabia is the cradle of Islam, containing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina
and the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad. Because of the kingdom's centrality
to Islam, religious backing is critical to the ruling family's continued reign.
Problem is,
those religious leaders show little willingness to compromise their rigid Wahhabi Muslim theology for the sake of earthly political
considerations.
Here's an
example of how the game is played.
In July,
Anwar Eshki, a retired Saudi army general, led a delegation to Israel where he met in Jerusalem with
Israel's Foreign Ministry director-general. Not in an Israeli government
building, of course, but in a private hotel – making it easier for the Saudi
side to deny the meeting was a formal inter-government encounter.
But visits
by Saudis, ranked or not, to Israel are extraordinarily rare (and vice versa).
Moreover, for a Saudi military figure, even a retired one, to do so without his
government's quiet okay invites legal prosecution.
Click here for a backgrounder from the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy on the visit and its significance. The Washington Institute is
sympathetic to Israel and the think-tank's scholars are widely published by
Israeli and Jewish diaspora news sites, as well as the mainstream media.
Note the
writer's conclusion on what might come next in this Israel-Saudi psychodrama.
The next
step may well depend on Arab public reaction (or lack thereof) to Eshki's
visit. The response has largely been indifferent so far, though it may be too
early to judge.
That was written
in late July. Since then, there's been plenty of response, much of it highly
negative in the Muslim world, and much of it rooted in a little-known Islamic
concept all but ignored, by Western journalists, including those on the
religion beat.
To explain
further, let me turn to Khaled Abu Toameh, a veteran Jerusalem-based, Israeli
Arab Muslim journalist also connected to New York's right-of-center Gatestone
Institute. Abu Toameh wrote the following last week:
[T]he
outrage the Saudi delegation's visit to Israel has triggered throughout the
Arab and Islamic countries points to one conclusion: that for many Arabs and
Muslims, the conflict with Israel is not about a withdrawal to the pre-1967
lines. Nor is the conflict about Palestinian rights and "normal
relations" between Israel and the Arab and Islamic countries.
The first
to express outrage over the visit were thousands of Saudis, including top
Islamic clerics, who took to social media to express their poison and hatred
for Israel and Jews. Many reminded their listeners of fatwas (Islamic religious
decrees) banning any form of "normalization" with Israel and Jews,
who are referred to as "infidels and polytheists." The fatwas also
forbid Muslims from giving up any part of "Muslim-owned" land to
non-Muslims.
Did you get
that? No giving up of "Muslim-owned land" to non-Muslims.
Many
contemporary Western scholars of Islam dismiss that notion – known in Islam as
Dar al-Harb (Territory of War) – as having no basis in the Quran or the Hadith,
the latter the writings that purport to convey the sayings and actions of the
Prophet. Instead, they say it was a legal innovation that arose during Islam's
later expansion.
Such
scholars, including Georgetown University's John L. Esposito in
"The Oxford Dictionary of Islam," also say the idea has no relevance
in today's world of fragmented nation-states – that is no relevance outside the
extremist realm. They say that when Osama bin Laden invoked reintegration of
al-Andalus – the part of Spain once under Muslim rule -- into the Islamic world
few took him seriously.
Be that
as it may, there are some Muslims, who I'd classify as extremists, who hold
firm to the notion that once land comes under Muslim control it must remain so
for all time and that it is incumbent upon Muslims to struggle to get it back.
(Yes, some
extremist religious Jews express a similar ethos about what they say the Hebrew
Bible maintains was given by God to the Israelites. However, Israeli
governments have willingly turned over land to the Palestinians out of
political considerations; a critical difference in my view.)
As the
entire Middle East was under the control of the Muslim Ottoman Empire from
1259-1924, those same Muslim extremists believe that what is now Israel – every
inch of it – is rightfully Muslim, and that Israel is but a temporary
interloper not to be allowed to remain out of passing political expediency.
Here's one
example of that quoted by Abu Toameh:
One of
the leading clerics, Dr. Ali Daghi, Secretary-General of the International
Muslim Scholars, wrote: "There is a consensus among Muslims, in the past
and present, that if an Islamic land is occupied, then its inhabitants must
declare jihad until it is liberated from the occupiers."
Abu Toameh
provides several similar examples in his essay. If he's correct about the
prevalence of such thought you can expect Saudi-Israeli relations to remain
maddeningly complicated for the foreseeable future – Iran notwithstanding.
Recently,
some opinion columns have appeared in the tightly
government-controlled Saudi news media arguing for greater tolerance toward
Jews and Israel, if only to benefit Saudi Arabia. Consider them no more than
trial balloons, intended once again to gauge the Saudi religious
establishment's reaction.
That's what
journalists should watch, because the ultra-cautious Saudi monarchy simply
won't risk losing the Wahhabi leadership's support, the loss of which also
likely means the end of the monarchy's religious and, thus, it's political
legitimacy. August 16, 2016,
-
While the
trigger for “Islamic awakening” was frequently the meeting with the West,
Islamic-motivated rebellions against colonial powers rarely involved
individuals from other Muslim countries or broke out of the confines of the
territories over which they were fighting. Until the 1980s, most fundamentalist
movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan Muslimun) were
inward-looking; Western superiority was viewed as the result of Muslims having
forsaken the teachings of the Prophet. Therefore, the remedy was, first,
“re-Islamization” of Muslim society and restoration of an Islamic government,
based on Islamic law (shari’ah). In this context, jihad was aimed mainly
against “apostate” Muslim governments and societies, while the historic
offensive jihad of the Muslim world against the infidels was put in abeyance
(at least until the restoration of the caliphate).
Until the
1980s, attempts to mobilize Muslims all over the world for a jihad in one area
of the world (Palestine, Kashmir) were unsuccessful. The Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan was a watershed event, as it revived the concept of participation
in jihad to evict an “infidel” occupier from a Muslim country as a “personal
duty” (fard ’ein) for every capable Muslim. The basis of this duty
derives from the “irreversibility” of Islamic identity both for individual
Muslims (thus, capital punishment for “apostates” — e.g., Salman Rushdie) and
for Muslim territories. Therefore, any land (Afghanistan, Palestine, Kashmir,
Chechnya, Spain) that had once been under the sway of Islamic law may not
revert to control by any other law. In such a case, it becomes the “personal
duty” of all Muslims in the land to fight a jihad to liberate it.
If they do not succeed, it becomes incumbent on any Muslim in a certain
perimeter from that land to join the jihad and so forth. Accordingly, given the
number of Muslim lands under “infidel occupation” and the length of time of
those occupations, it is argued that it has become a personal duty for all
Muslims to join the jihad. This duty — if taken seriously — is no less a
religious imperative than the other five pillars of Islam (the statement of
belief or shahadah, prayer, fasting, charity, and haj). It
becomes a de facto (and in the eyes of some a de jure) sixth pillar; a Muslim
who does not perform it will inherit hell.
Such a
philosophy attributing centrality to the duty of jihad is not an innovation of
modern radical Islam. The seventh-century Kharijite sect, infamous in Islamic
history as a cause of Muslim civil war, took this position and implemented it.
But the Kharijite doctrine was rejected as a heresy by medieval Islam. The
novelty is the tacit acceptance by mainstream Islam of the basic building
blocks of this “neo-Kharijite” school.
The Soviet
defeat in Afghanistan and the subsequent fall of the Soviet Union were
perceived as an eschatological sign, adumbrating the renewal of the jihad
against the infidel world at large and the apocalyptical war between Islam and
heresy which will result in the rule of Islam in the world. Along with the
renewal of the jihad, the Islamist Weltanschauung, which emerged from the
Afghani crucible, developed a Thanatophile ideology in which
death is idealized as a desired goal and not a necessary evil in war.
An offshoot
of this philosophy poses a dilemma for theories of deterrence. The Islamic
traditions of war allow the Muslim forces to retreat if their numerical
strength is less than half that of the enemy. Other traditions go further and
allow retreat only in the face of a tenfold superiority of the enemy. The
reasoning is that the act of jihad is, by definition, an act of faith in Allah.
By fighting a weaker or equal enemy, the Muslim is relying on his own strength
and not on Allah; by entering the fray against all odds, the mujahed is
proving his utter faith in Allah and will be rewarded accordingly.
The
politics of Islamist radicalism has also bred a mentality of bello ergo sum
(I fight, therefore I exist) — Islamic leaders are in constant need of popular
jihads to boost their leadership status. Nothing succeeds like success: The
attacks in the United States gave birth to a second wave of mujahidin who want
to emulate their heroes. The perception of resolve on the part of the West is a
critical factor in shaping the mood of the Muslim population toward radical
ideas. Therefore, the manner by which the United States deals with the present
crisis in Iraq is not unconnected to the future of the radical Islamic
movement. In these circles, the American occupation of Iraq is likened to the
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; a sense of American failure would feed the
apocalyptical ideology of jihad.
The
legality of jihad
These
beliefs are commonly viewed as typical of radical Islamic ideology, but few
orthodox Islamic scholars would deny that they are deeply rooted in orthodox
Islam or would dismiss the very ideology of jihad as a military struggle as
foreign to the basic tenets of Islam.
Hence, much
of the debate between radicals and nonradicals is not over the religious
principles themselves, but over their implication for actual behavior as based
on the detailed legal interpretation of those principles. This legal
interpretation is the soul of the debate. Even among moderate Islamic scholars
who condemn acts of terrorism (albeit with reservation so as not to include
acts perpetrated against Israel in such a category), there is no agreement on why
they should be condemned: Many modernists acknowledge the existence of a duty
of jihad in Islam but call for an “Islamic Protestantism” that would divest
Islam of vestiges of anachronistic beliefs; conservative moderates find in
traditional Islamic jurisprudence (shari’ah) legal justification to put
the imperative of jihad in abeyance; others use linguistic analysis to point
out that the etymology of the word jihad (jahada) actually means “to
strive,” does not mean “holy war,” and does not necessarily have a military
connotation.
The
legalistic approach is not a barren preoccupation of scholars. The ideal
Islamic regime is a nomocracy: The law is given and immutable, and it remains
for the leaders of the ummah (the Islamic nation) to apply it on a
day-to-day basis. Islam is not indifferent to any facet of human behavior; all
possible acts potentially have a religious standing, ranging between “duty” (fard,
pl. fara’id); “recommended” (mandub); “optional” (jaiz);
“permitted” (mubah); “reprehensible” (makruh); and “forbidden” (haram).
This taxonomy of human behavior has far-reaching importance for the believer:
By performing all his religious duties, he will inherit paradise; by failing to
do so (“sins of omission”) or doing that which is forbidden (“sins of
commission”), he will be condemned to hell. Therefore, such issues as the
legitimacy of jihad — ostensibly deriving from the roots of Islam — cannot be
decided by abstract morality or by politics, but by meticulous
legal analysis and ruling (fatwa) according to the shari’ah,
performed by an authoritative Islamic scholar (’alem, pl. ’ulama).
The use of fatwas
to call for violent action first became known in the West as a result of
Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, and again after Osama
bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa against the United States and Israel. But as a
genuine instrument of religious deliberation, it has not received the attention
it deserves. Analysts have frequently interpreted fatwas as no more than
the cynical use of religious terminology in political propaganda. This
interpretation does not do justice to the painstaking process of legal
reasoning invested in these documents and the importance that their authors and
their target audience genuinely accord to the religious truthfulness of their
rulings.
The
political strength of these fatwas has been time-tested in Muslim
political society by rebels and insurgents from the Arabian peninsula to Sudan,
India, and Indonesia. At the same time, they have been used by Muslim regimes
to bolster their Islamic credentials against external and domestic enemies and
to legitimize their policies. This was done by the Sudanese mahdi in his
rebellion against the British (1881-85); by the Ottoman caliphate (December
1914) in World War i; by the Syrian regime against the rebellion in northern
Syria (1981); and, mutatis mutandis, by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to
legitimize his peace policies toward Israel.
The fatwas
promulgated by sheikhs and ’ulama who stipulate that jihad is a
“personal duty” play, therefore, a pivotal role in encouraging radicalism and
in building the support infrastructure for radicals within the traditional
Islamic community. While one may find many fatwas which advocate various
manifestations of terrorism, fatwas which rule that those who perform
these acts do not go to paradise but inherit hell are few and far between.
The
questions relating to jihad which are referred to the religious scholars relate to a number of issues:
The very
definition, current existence, and area of application of the state of jihad. Is jihad one of the “pillars” (arkan)
or “roots” (usul) of Islam? Does it necessarily imply military war, or
can it be perceived as a duty to spread Islam through preaching or even the
moral struggle between one’s soul and Satan? If the former,
then what are the necessary conditions for jihad? Does a state of jihad
currently exist between Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb? And how can
one define Dar al-Islam today, in the absence of a caliphate? Is the
rest of the world automatically defined as Dar al-Harb with which a
state of jihad exists, or do the treaties and diplomatic relations which exist
between Muslim countries and “infidel” countries (including the charter of the
United Nations) change this?
Who must
participate in jihad, and how? Is jihad a personal duty (fard ’ein) for each and every Muslim
under all circumstances or a collective duty (fard kiffaya) that can be
performed only under the leadership of a leader of all Muslims (imam, khalifa,
amir al-mu’aminin)? Is it incumbent on women? On minors? (According to
Islamic law, in the case of a defensive jihad for the liberation of Islamic
territory from infidel occupation, “a woman need not ask permission of her
husband nor a child of his parents nor a slave of his master.”) May a Muslim
refrain from supporting his attacked brethren or obey a non-Muslim secular law
which prohibits him from supporting other Muslims in their struggle?
How
should the jihad be fought (jus in bellum)? The questions in this area relate, inter
alia, to: (a) Is jihad by definition an act of conflict against the actual
“infidels” or can it be defined as a spiritual struggle against the “evil
inclination”? If it is the former, must it take the form of war (jihad
fi-sabil Allah) or can it be performed by way of preaching and
proselytization (da’awah)? (b) Who is a legitimate target? Is it
permissible to kill noncombatant civilians — women, children, elderly, and clerics;
“protected” non-Muslims in Muslim countries — local non-Muslims or tourists
whose visas may be interpreted as Islamic guarantees of passage (aman);
Muslim bystanders? (c) The legitimacy of suicide attacks (istishhad) as
a form of jihad in the light of the severe prohibition on a Muslim taking his
own life, on one hand, and the promise of rewards in the afterlife for the shahid
who falls in a jihad on the other hand. (d) The weapons which
may be used. For example, may a hijacked plane be used as a weapon as in the
attacks of September 11 in the light of Islamic prohibitions on killing
prisoners? (e) The status of a Muslim who aids the “infidels” against other
Muslims. (f) The authority to implement capital punishment in the absence of a
caliph.
How
should jihad be funded? “Pocketbook jihad” is deeply entrenched in Islamic tradition. It is
based on the injunction that one must fight jihad with his soul or with his
tongue (jihad al-lissan or da’awah) or with his money (jihad
fi-mal). Therefore, financial support of jihad is politically correct and
even good for business for the wealthy supporter. The transfer of zakat
(almsgiving) raised in a community for jihad fi-sabil Allah (i.e., jihad
on Allah’s path or military jihad) has wide religious and social legitimacy. The precepts of “war booty” (ghaneema or fay’)
call for a fifth (khoms) to be rendered to the mujahidin. Acts that
would otherwise be considered religiously prohibited are thus legitimized by
the payment of such a “tax” for the sake of jihad. While there have been
attempts to bring Muslim clerics to denounce acts of terrorism, none, to date,
have condemned the donation of money for jihad.
The dilemma
of the moderate Muslim
It can be
safely assumed that the great majority of Muslims in the world have no desire
to join a jihad or to politicize their religion. However, it is also true that
insofar as religious establishments in most of the Arabian peninsula, in Iran,
and in much of Egypt and North Africa are concerned, the radical ideology does
not represent a marginal and extremist perversion of Islam but rather a genuine
and increasingly mainstream interpretation. Even after 9-11, the sermons
broadcast from Mecca cannot be easily distinguished from those of al Qaeda.
Facing the
radical Weltanschauung, the moderate but orthodox Muslim has to grapple with
two main dilemmas: the difficulty of refuting the legal-religious arguments of
the radical interpretation and the aversion to — or even prohibition of —
inciting an Islamic Kulturkampf which would split the ranks of the ummah.
The first
dilemma is not uniquely Islamic. It is characteristic of revelation-based
religions that the less observant or less orthodox will hesitate to challenge
fundamental dogmas out of fear of being branded slack or lapsed in their faith.
They will prefer to pay their dues to the religious establishment, hoping that
by doing so they are also buying their own freedom from coercion. On a deeper
level, many believers who are not strict in observance may see their own
lifestyle as a matter of convenience and not principle, while the extreme
orthodox is the true believer to whom they defer.
This
phenomenon is compounded in Islam by the fact that “Arab” Sunni Islam never
went though a reform. Since the tenth century, Islam has
lacked an accepted mechanism for relegating a tenet or text to ideological
obsolescence. Until that time, such a mechanism — ijtihad — existed; ijtihad
is the authorization of scholars to reach conclusions not only from existing
interpretations and legal precedents, but from their own perusal of the texts.
In the tenth century, the “gates of ijtihad” were closed for most of the
Sunni world. It is still practiced in Shiite Islam and in Southeast Asia.
Reformist traditions did appear in non-Arab Middle Eastern Muslim societies
(Turkey, Iran) and in Southeast Asian Islam. Many Sufi (mystical) schools also
have traditions of syncretism, reformism, and moderation. These traditions,
however, have always suffered from a lack of wide legitimacy due to their
non-Arab origins and have never been able to offer themselves as an acceptable
alternative to ideologies born in the heartland of Islam and expressed in the
tongue of the Prophet. In recent years, these societies have undergone a
transformation and have adopted much of the Middle Eastern brand of Islamic
orthodoxy and have become, therefore, more susceptible to radical ideologies
under the influence of Wahhabi missionaries, Iranian export of Islam, and the
cross-pollination resulting from the globalization of ideas in the information
age.
The second
dilemma — the disinclination of moderates to confront the radicals — has
frequently been attributed to violent intimidation (which, no doubt, exists),
but it has an additional religious dimension. While the radicals are not averse
to branding their adversaries as apostates, orthodox and moderate Muslims
rarely resort to this weapon. Such an act (takfir — accusing another
Muslim of heresy [kufr] by falsifying the roots of Islam, allowing that
which is prohibited or forbidding that which is allowed) is not to be taken
lightly; it contradicts the deep-rooted value that Islam places on unity among
the believers and its aversion to fitna (communal discord). It is ironic
that a religious mechanism which seems to have been created as a tool to
preserve pluralism and prevent internal debates from deteriorating into civil
war and mutual accusations of heresy (as occurred in Christian Europe) has
become a tool in the hands of the radicals to drown out any criticism of them.
Consequently,
even when pressure is put on Muslim communities, there exists a political
asymmetry in favor of the radicals. Moderates are reluctant to come forward and
to risk being accused of apostasy. For this very reason, many Muslim regimes in
the Middle East and Asia are reluctant to crack down on the religious aspects
of radical Islam and satisfy themselves with dealing with the political
violence alone. By way of appeasement politics, they trade tolerance of jihad
elsewhere for local calm. Thus, they lose ground to radicals in their
societies.
https://www.hoover.org/research/religious-sources-islamic-terrorism
-
Mawdudi
on the Islamic State, Muslim Power and non-Muslim Rights
A Few
Quick Blurbs, Who Was Mawlana Abu'l-A`la Mawdudi ?
"It is
not exaggeration to say that by the time of his death he had become the most
widely read Muslim author of our time, contributing immensely to the
contemporary resurgence of Islamic ideas, feelings and activity all over the
world." (preface of Towards Understanding Islam, by Mawdudi, p.13)
"Mawlana
Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi [1903-79], one of the chief architects of contemporary
Islamic resurgence, was the most outstanding Islamic thinker and writer of his
time. He devoted his entire life to expounding the meaning and message of Islam
..." (from preface of Mawdudi's Towards Understanding Islam,
possibly by Zafar Ishaq Ansari (?) back cover)
Some Bio
Info
Born in the
"present Hyderabad state of India," "Mawdudi came from a family
steeped in the religious tradition of Islam. On his father's side he was
descended from the Chishti line of saints; in fact his very name, Abul Ala,
derives from the first member of the Chishti silsiah (a Sufi `Order`) ... [He]
received religious nurture at the hands of his father and from a variety of
teachers employed by him. . . His instruction included very little of the
subject matter of a modern school; and European languages, specifically
English, were not among the courses he followed ... "
"Significant
turning point came for Mawdudi in connection with the murder of a certain Swami
Shradhanand by a Muslim fanatic in 1925 ... There were accusations that Islam
relies upon the sword for its propagation ... repetitions of the old slander that
Islam promises Paradise to those who kill an unbeliever. Mawdudi undertook to
answer these charges in the columns of al-Jamiah." (Adams, p.100-101)
(Note: Abul A'la Mawdudi was his given name. "He usually referred to as
Mawlana Mawdudi because of his religious learning."
(http://www.bookrags.com/biography-abu-i-ala-mawdudi/index.html)
Mawdudi's
Islamic State (from Adams)
Mawdudi was
the founder of Jama`at-i Islami party/movement in India and Pakistan. (Although
it traditionally has not gone above the single digits in vote gathering, it had
much success in influencing Pakistani elites and has "managed to exert a
political and ideological influence in excess" of its numbers. ..."
(Talbot, p.108)
Mawdudi on
the Islamic state:
Its sphere
of activity is co-extensive with human life ... In such a state no one can
regard any field of his affairs as personal and private.` [Ahmad, p.154]
It should
be
the very
antithesis of secular Western democracy ... In such a state no one can regard
any field of his affairs as personal and private. Considered from this aspect
the Islamic state bears a kind of resemblance to the Fascist and Communist
states [Adams, pp. 119-21]
Muslims
in Charge.
It is a
dictate of this very nature of the Islamic state that such a state should be
run only by those who believe in the ideology on which it is based and in the
Divine Law which it is assigned to administer. [Ahmad p.155, quoted in Adams
p.121]
Choosing
the State's Leader.
Islam does
not limit the scope of its possibilities by attempting to lay down exactly how
the choice of leader will be made. [Ahmad, quoted in Adams, p.252]
Different
methods may be appropriate to different times and circumstances, as is
evidenced by the lack of uniformity in the ways of deciding the succession of
the first four caliphs ... [Adams, p.123]
Legislature
Should not Be a Law-Making Body
In addition
to providing a means for the ruler to fulfill the duty of consulting, the
function of the legislature is really that of law-finding, not of law-making. .
.
Islam
... leaves
no room of human legislation in an Islamic state, because herein all
legislative functions vest in God and the only function left for Muslims lies
in their observance of the God-made law . . The fact of the matter, however, is
that Islam does not totally exclude human legislation. It only limits its scope
and guide it on right lines.` [Adams p.125, quoting Ahmad, p.77]
The State must "be controlled and run
exclusively by Muslims."
Head of state, "the locus of all power
and authority," must be a Muslim, adult male who has NOT actively sought
the post.
The Ruler should be the "best" (in
terms of piety as well as competency) for the task.
non-Muslims may hold non-sensitive posts, but
must be "rigorously excluded from influencing policy decisions."
Government must be managed though mutual
consultation, the ruler is to be selected, appointed, or elected through a
consultative process.
How the leader is chosen may vary.
"Islam does not limit the scope of its possibilities by attempting to lay
down exactly how the choice of leader will be made."
Legislature is a consultative body whose
"opinions and judgments are not binding either upon the ruler or the
people of the Islamic state." ("Complete power remains with the
ruler.")
deals with four kinds of legislation
- interpreting
Sharia
- where the Shariah has not laid
down specific injunctions analogous situations are found. (qiyas)
- inference from general
principles to derive guidance.
- passing "independent
legislation" in the `vast range of human affairs about which Shariah
is totally silent` (Ahmad, quoted in Adams, p.78)
but where
legislation must accord with the spirit of Islam. (Adams p.126)
because in a pious Islamic society matters
would be resolved by consensus, there is "no provision of effective
machinery for resolving conflict" in Mawdudi's state.
To restore
the unity and righteousness that existed at the time of the Rightly Guided
Khalifs, Four principles are needed:
- Those who bear responsibility
should face the representatives so the public and be accountable for what
they do
- The party system should be
reformed to abolish loyalty to parties
- The government should not
operate with complex rules
- The people elected to office
should have the proper qualifications.
(Ahmad, p.259)
Mawdudi on Pakistan
Mawdudi
originally preached that Islam should be organized as a party ruled by a system
of ideas rather than as a religion and aim towards taking over "the whole
of India" rather than seperating from it. (Adams, p.104) But in a reverse
of his pro-pan-Islamic position that "was to say the least,
surprising," Mawdudi embraced the state of Pakistan (which was enormously
popular among Muslims of the subcontinent) despite the fact that he had opposed
nationalism of any sort and that the new state did not use the Shariah.
Now that
this had become a regularized Islamic state, it is no longer the country of the
enemy against which it is our duty to strive. Rather, it is now the country of
friends, our own country, the strengthening, construction and progress of which
are our duty.
[Adams, p.107]
Mawdudi
on Shariah
Directives
of the Shariah deal with
family
relationships, social and economic affairs, administration, rights and duties
of citizens, judicial system, laws of war and peace and international
relations. In short it embraces all the various departments of life ... The
Shariah is a complete scheme of life and an all-embracing social order where
nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking. [Adams p.113, quoting Ahmad
p.57]
Mawdudi
on non-Muslim Culture
The
"cultural aping" by Muslims "of others" (i.e. non-Muslims)
has
very
disastrous consequences upon a nation; it destroys its inner vitality, blurs
its vision, befogs its critical faculties, breeds inferiority complexes, and
gradually but assuredly saps all the springs of culture and sound its
death-knell. That is why the Holy Prophet has positively and forcefully
forbidden the Muslims to assume the culture and mode of life of the
non-Muslims. [Maududi, Towards Understanding Islam, p.131]
Mawdudi
on non-Muslims Rights (from Short)
.... Abul
'Ala Mawdudi, Qur'anic exegete and founder of the Islamist Pakistani group Jama'at-i-Islami
was quite unapologetic about Jizyah:
...the
Muslims should feel proud of such a humane law as that of Jizya. For it
is obvious that a maximum freedom that can be allowed to those who do not adopt
the way of Allah but choose to tread the ways of error is that they should be
tolerated to lead the life they like. [Mawdudi, The Meaning of the Qur'an,
p.183.]
He
interprets the Qur'anic imperative to Jihad as having the aim of subjugating
non-Muslims, to force them to pay the Jizyah as the defining symbol of
their subjection:
... Jews
and the Christians ...should be forced to pay Jizya in order to put an end to
their independence and supremacy so that they should not remain rulers and
sovereigns in the land. These powers should be wrested from them by the
followers of the true Faith, who should assume the sovereignty and lead others
towards the Right Way. [Mawdudi, The Meaning of the Qur'an, v.2, page
183.]
The
consequence of this is that in an Islamic State -- specifically the Khilafah --
non-Muslims should be denied Government posts, since the state exists for the
Muslims, who alone are true citizens, whilst the non-Muslims are merely
conquered residents, and the Jizyah signifies this:
That is why
the Islamic state offers them protection, if they agree to live as Zimmis by
paying Jizya, but it can not allow that they should remain supreme
rulers in any place and establish wrong ways and establish them on others. As
this state of things inevitably produce chaos and disorder, it is the duty of
the true Muslims to exert their utmost to bring an end to their wicked rule and
bring them under a righteous order. [Mawdudi, The Meaning of the Qur'an,
v.2, p. 186.]
Differences
of taxation demonstrate distinctions in citizenship. As a symbol of subjection,
it signifies that the state is not really the common property of all its
permanent residents, but only the Muslims ...
Mawdudi
on non-Muslims Rights (from Roy)
"The
two kinds of citizenship that Islam envisions are the following: (1) the
Muslims, (2) the Zimmis." (Ahmad p.245, quoted in Roy p.223)
Maududi's
Islamic State and "Theodemocracy" (from Ruthven)
In the true
Islamic state, for which Maududi coined the term "theodemocracy," the
representatives of the people may be co-opted into the national assembly rather
than elected, on the grounds that truly virtuous people will not always put
themselves forward. As Yousef Choueiri has observed, Maududi's theodemocracy is
an
ideological
state in which legislators do not legislate, citizens only vote to reaffirm the
permanent applicability of God's laws, women rarely venture outside their homes
lest social discipline be disrupted, and non-Muslims are tolerated a foreign
elements required to express their loyalty by means of paying a financial levy`
(i.e. the jizya)
[Choueiri p.111, quoted in Ruthven p.70]
Mawdudi's
Islamic State - Ideological, One-Party Rule (from Kramer)
Much of the
ideological spadework was done by Mawlana Abu'l-A`la Mawdudi (1903-79), the
founder of the fundamentalist Jama`at-i Islami in India and Pakistan. His many
writings, translated into every major language spoken by Muslims, provide a
panoramic view of the ideal fundamentalist state. In this state, sovereignty
would belong to God alone, and would be exercised on his behalf by a just
ruler, himself guided by a reading of God's law in its entirety. As an
ideological state, it would be administered for God solely by Muslims who
adhered to its ideology, and "whose whole life is devoted to the
observance and enforcement" of Islamic law. Non-Muslims, who could not
share its ideology, and women, who by nature could not devote their entire
lives to it, would have no place in high politics. Everything would come under
the purview of this Islamic state. "In such a state," announced
Mawdudi,
no one can
regard any field of his affairs as personal and private. Considered from this
aspect the Islamic state bears a kind of resemblance to the Fascist and
Communist states,
although
Mawdudi rejected individual dictatorship, instead advocating a variety of
one-party rule. Mawdudi was certain about what the Islamic state would not
resemble: it would be "the very antithesis of secular Western
democracy." (Adams, p.119-21.)
Mawdudi himself never had a sufficient following to make a concerted bid for
power in Pakistan, but his writings exerted a wide influence over
fundamentalists better positioned to act upon his vision. (Kramer)
Mawdudi
- Islamic rule of Hindu India (from Kepel)
Jihad in
Islam, was
published in Urdu in the late 1920s, roughly coinciding with Banna's creation
of the Society of Muslim Brothers in Egypt. From the start Mawdudi was against
the project for a circumscribed `Muslim state,` [aka Pakistan] which would give
power to the nationalists. Instead, he agitated for an Islamic state covering
the whole of India. For him, all nationalism was impiety, more especially as
its conception of the state was European-inspired. Apart from this he had
nothing but contempt for the ulamas, whom he accused of having collaborated
with the British occupiers since the fall of Muslim-held Delhi in 1857. Mawdudi
favored what he called `Islamization from above,` through a state in which
sovereignty would be exercised in the name of Allah and the sharia would be
implemented. He declared that politics was `an integral, inseparable part of
the Islamic faith, and that the Islamic state that Muslim political action
seeks to build is a panacea for all their [Muslims] problems.` (Nasr, p.7)
For him,
the five traditional Pillars of Islam (profession of the faith, prayer, the
fast of Ramadan, pilgrimage, and almsgiving) were merely phases of training and
preparation for jihad, the struggle against those of Allah's creatures who had
usurped His sovereignty. To carry out his jihad, he founded in 1941, the
Jamaat-e-Islami, which he saw as the vanguard of the Islamic Revolution, on a
Leninist model. Mawdudi made explicit references to the `vanguard` of the
earliest Muslims, who gathered around the Prophet in 622 during the Hegira,
broke with the idolatrous people of Mecca, and departed to found the Islamic
state of Medina. His own party was intended to follow a similar course." (Kepel,
p.34)
Mawdudi
- Jahiliyya and Apostacy - from Sivan
"...
The diagnosis set by the Maudoodi school, and further developed by Qutb and his
disciples, takes this decadence theory several steps further, crossing, in the
process, a crucial borderline: it is no more just a question of decline; Islam
- particularly under the new military state - has reverted to a stage of
jahiliyya that reflects the situation of Arabia prior to A.D. 622. The elites -
and other peddlers of modernity who brought it to that state of affairs, as
well as the ruled who tolerate or embrace it, are guilty of apostacy
(ridda)." (Sivan, p.65)
http://gemsofislamism.tripod.com/mawdudi_gems.html:
Why
Muslims See the Crusades So Differently from Christians, Missy Sullivan
It’s often
said that winners dictate history. Not so for the medieval holy wars called the Crusades.
Muslim
forces ultimately expelled the European Christians who invaded the eastern
Mediterranean repeatedly in the 12th and 13th centuries—and thwarted their
effort to regain control of sacred Holy Land sites such as Jerusalem. Still,
most histories of the Crusades offer a largely one-sided view, drawn originally
from European medieval chronicles, then filtered through 18th and 19th-century
Western scholars.
But how did
Muslims at the time view the invasions? (Not always so contentiously, it turns
out.) And what did they think of the European interlopers? (One common cliché:
“unwashed barbarians.”) For a nuanced view of the medieval Muslim world,
HISTORY talked with two prominent scholars: Paul M. Cobb, professor of Islamic
History at the University of Pennsylvania, author of Race for Paradise: An
Islamic History of the Crusades, and Suleiman A. Mourad, a professor of
religion at Smith College and author of The Mosaic of Islam.
HISTORY:
Broadly speaking, how do Islamic perspectives on the Crusades differ from those
of the Christian sources from Western Europe?
Suleiman Mourad: If we wrote the history of the Crusades based on Islamic
narratives, it would be a completely different story altogether. There were no
doubt wars and bloodshed, but that wasn’t the only or dominant story. There was
also coexistence, political compromise, trade, scientific exchange, love. We
have poetry and chronicles with evidence of mixed marriages.
Do
Muslim perspectives match Western ones in terms of chronology and geography?
Paul Cobb: Chronologically, Muslim sources differ from the Christians because
they don’t recognize the Crusades. They recognize the events we call the
Crusades today simply as another wave of Frankish aggression on the Muslim
world. (I use “Franks” or “Frankish” to refer to western Christians.) For them,
the Crusades didn’t begin in Clermont with Pope Urban’s 1095 speech [rallying crusaders], as most
historians say, but rather decades earlier. By 1060 Christians were not only
nibbling at the edges of the Islamic world, but were actually gaining territory
in Sicily and Spain. And whereas most Western historians recognize the 1291
fall of Acre as the end of the main Crusades, Muslim historians don’t see the
end of the Frankish threat until, I would say, the mid-15th century, when
Ottoman armies conquer Constantinople.
SM: To say
the Crusades started in Clermont in 1095 and ended at Acre in 1291, we are
fooling ourselves. History is not that clean cut. What came before and after
reflected a lot of continuity and not abrupt change.
And
geographically?
PC: Muslims saw the Frankish threat as Mediterranean-wide. It’s not just Franks
invading Jerusalem, holding it 87 years and leaving, but a long-term and
consistent assault on the most exposed areas of the Mediterranean edge of
Muslim world—Spain, Sicily, North Africa, and what is now Turkey—over hundreds
of years.
Let’s
back up. As the Crusades began, what were the physical boundaries of the
Islamic world?
PC: The Islamic world—that is, those lands that recognized Muslim rulers and
the authority of Islamic Law—was much bigger than the land of the Latin
Christian west. It stretched from Spain and Portugal in the west to India in
the east. And from central Asia in the north to Sudan and the horn of Africa in
the south.
Portrait of
Saladin, the first sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid
dynasty. While Saladin led Muslim opposition to the western Crusaders, he also
befriended some, like King Baldwin III of Jerusalem. (Credit: Universal History
Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
At that
time, the core of the Islamic world was divided between a Shi’ite dynasty in
Egypt and a Sunni dynasty in Syria and Iraq. But there was eventually a
movement toward unification, right?
PC: Saladin, Islam’s most famous counter-crusading hero, was a very astute politician who knew he had to get his own house in
order before he could deal with the Franks. He took over Egypt, then set about
reconquering Syria and parts of Iraq. He would go on to ultimately recapture
Jerusalem from the crusaders and push them back to a thin strip along the
Mediterranean.
Tell me
about medieval Islamic civilization. Wasn’t there a flowering in the 9th and
10th centuries?
SM: Actually, Islam’s “golden age” goes much longer, from the 9th to the 14th
centuries—and it moves around, from Baghdad to Damascus to Cairo. Within that
time, there were golden ages of mathematics and astronomy and medicine, with
many advances. One example: A physician named Ibm al-Nafis, who lived in the
13th century in Cairo, was the first person to describe the pulmonary
circulation of blood—four centuries before the Europeans discovered that.
The main
accomplishment was when, on a large scale, Muslims began to creatively engage
with the science and philosophy of the classical Greco-Roman-Byzantine
tradition—and began to rethink those ideas. For pretty much the whole apparatus
of science, mathematics and logic, Muslim scholars, along with others based in
the Muslim world, provided corrections to the Greco-Roman tradition.
How
would you compare European and Islamic civilizations during this time?
PC: The Islamic world was much bigger and more urbanized, with more wealth and
cultural patronage, and more ethnic and linguistic diversity. Whereas the
cities of western Christendom had populations measured in the thousands—Paris
and London would have had maybe 20,000 each—Baghdad likely had hundreds of
thousands of citizens.
So we’re
talking about an invasion of peoples from a marginal, underdeveloped region of
the world to one of the most urbanized, culturally sophisticated zones on the
planet. That accounts for the sense of trauma from the Muslim side. How could
people from the edge of the known world invade this divinely protected,
culturally sophisticated and militarily triumphant region? There was a lot of
soul searching on the part of the Muslims.
If the
crusaders’ mandate was to reclaim the Holy Land and regain control of important
Christian sites like Jerusalem, what was the importance of this territory for
the Islamic world?
PC: Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest cities after Mecca and Medina, was one of
its most pious pilgrimage sites. Islamic tradition built on many Christian
traditions and revered many of the same figures known from the Bible and
elsewhere—including Jesus. So for them, Jerusalem was at the center of a vast
sacred landscape that stretched to Palestine and Syria.
SM: There’s
a lot of literature that enjoins Muslims to protect the Holy Land and safeguard
it as an Islamic space. But many places—in Jerusalem, in Acre, Saidnaya and
elsewhere—were claimed by more than one community. These were sacred sites for
everyone, not just one group.
Wait. So
they were actually sharing sacred sites that, in theory, they were supposed to
be fighting over?
SM: Today we have a rigid understanding of sacred sites being for one group,
and the others won’t—and shouldn’t—come near it. Back then, there was a more
collective approach to sanctity of space. The Islamic theory said, “we should
fight these people and protect the Holy Land.” But in practice, they were
willing to share. We know for a fact that when the crusaders came, most Muslims
did not raise a finger. And to a large extent, the crusaders didn’t interfere
with Muslim religious space.
No sooner
did the crusaders infiltrate, they were accepted into the political landscape
as any others that came: with alliances, wars, treaties, commerce. We have
letters from Saladin to the king of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, that convey
friendship and deep alliances. The relationship wasn’t dogmatic, it was
pragmatic.
What did
medieval Muslims think of Europeans?
SM: The broad Muslim perception of Europeans was as cross-eyed barbarians.
There were clichés that got repeated up until the 19th century—usually about
their lack of cleanliness, the fact that they defecate in the street without
any sense of privacy. There is a story about crusader medicine, that they
blood-let in order to let the demons out. The people who knew the crusaders
gave a much more refined understanding, but the positive narratives were not
widely disseminated.
PC: Muslim
travelers had a hierarchical world view. In the center was the Islamic world.
On its margins, the people of Western Europe weren’t on the extreme edge, but
were warming their hands on the fires of civilization. Europe was considered
cold and dark and surrounded in mist. In ancient medieval ethnography,
geography was destiny. It was believed the Franks were hairy, pale and from the
dark and unwashed North. The medieval Islamic world’s view of the west is a
mirror of today’s view of Islam by the west: exotic and distant, populated by a
fanatical warlike population, slow to develop, economically backwards—with nice
monuments and raw materials, but otherwise not much to recommend it.
What do
specific accounts say?
PC: Most famously there was an Arabic author named Ibrahim Ibn Ya’qub, who
traveled around Europe in the 10th century, and his work was quoted by others.
He left first-hand accounts of France, Italy and Germany, among other places.
We learn, for example, of lushness of the land in Bordeaux, feasting practices
in Germany, even whaling practices near Ireland. For all these, he was pleased
by the land, but appalled by the people he met. “They do not bathe except once
or twice a year, with cold water,” he wrote. “They never wash their clothes,
which they put on once for good until they fall into tatters.” What you have is
a classic strategy by which one society “others” another society—much as
Europeans did to Muslims.
SM: Those
who lived with the crusaders at close range sometimes gave a subtler picture. A
diplomat named Usama ibn Munqidh went to crusader territories and befriended
the leaders. He writes about visiting a court, and being very impressed with
it. He liked that it wasn’t fully autocratic.
Jerusalem
was one of the holiest places in the eastern Mediterranean—for Muslims,
Christians andJews alike. (Credit: Photo12/UIG/Getty Images)
What did
Muslims think of Templar knights?
PC: They were aware of the Templars’ special status as elite holy warriors and
considered them their most fearsome Frankish opponents. They also saw them as
principled, fanatically loyal and unwaveringly fierce. It’s a backhanded
compliment that after the battle of Hattin in 1187—the great defeat of the
Franks at the hands of Saladin, who was usually magnanimous—he insisted the
Templar prisoners be executed because they were seen as such a dire threat.
On the
other side, Usama Ibn Munqidh tells the story of a Frank, recently arrived to
the Holy Land, who harassed him about how he was praying when he was in a
Templar chapel. And the Templars apologized and helped Usama. Hosting him to
pray was part of a diplomatic code.
SM: The
Templars represented to the Muslims a model blending religiosity and militancy
that was novel. To give a modern parallel, they were perceived not unlike the
way Muslims today might think of Isis: that they are too fanatic for their
taste. They bring to their fighting a kind of religious zeal, and they bring to
their religion a kind of militancy.
Are
jihad and crusade related?
PC: There is a family resemblance because they share roots in monotheism, where
God is a jealous God. And both Crusades and Jihad offered martyrdom to those
who die. But while they look alike, they have some important differences.
Crusades were directed at the liberation of sacred land considered rightfully
Christian, whereas Jihad was about rescuing souls.
SM: I
personally don’t find any structural difference between the two. Jihad has an
Islamic concept: religiously sanctioned aggression. The Crusades were precisely
that.
What was
the impact of the Crusades in the Muslim world?
SM: The legacy of the Crusades in the Muslim world is that a lot of Muslims
think of where they are today in terms of Western encroachment. For some, the
Crusades are seen not just as a medieval threat, but as a present one—a
perpetual Western attempt to undermine Islam. It could be physical colonialism
or cultural colonialism.
The groups
that paid the biggest price of the crusader experience were the local
(non-European) Christians. By the time the crusaders were kicked out, the
dominant ruling dynasties happened to be Sunni. Many Shi’ites and local
Christians felt their best option was to convert. After the crusader period,
the Middle East becomes far less Christian and far less Shi’ite.
Why are
the Crusades still relevant today in the Middle East?
PC: It’s a bit like what Mark Twain said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but
sometimes it rhymes.” Modern ideologues might draw on the Crusades to justify
contemporary conflict as part of some millennium-long continuum. But the truth
is, crusaders and Muslims fought for their own goals, not for the ones that
motivate us today.
SM: Three
words: politics of religion.
Why Jews
and Muslims Both Have Religious Claims on Jerusalem
The U.S.
will recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital—despite a dueling claim from
Palestine.
Becky Little
The matter
of Israel’s capital city has long been a source of
dispute. Although nearly all foreign embassies in Israel are located in Tel Aviv, the
country considers Jerusalem to be its capital. Jerusalem, which is
one of the oldest cities in the world, has been formally divided between Israel
and Palestine for nearly 70 years, yet changed hands many
other times throughout the course of its over 5,000-year history.
Israel and
Palestine’s dueling claims to the city are steeped in decades of conflict,
during which Jewish settlers pushed Muslim Arabs out of their homes and
established the state of Israel on their land in the middle of the
20th century. But the claims are also tied to the religions of Judaism and Islam, both
of which recognize Jerusalem as a holy place.
On December
6, 2017, President Donald Trump broke with previous U.S. foreign
policy and announced that the U.S. would recognize
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, effectively endorsing Israeli control of the
city. On May 14, 2018, the U.S. relocated its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel
Aviv.
Department
to begin the multi-year process of moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to
the holy city. (Credit: Oded Balilty/AP Photo)
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are strongly tied to the ancient
city, and followers of each of these religions have controlled all or part of
the city over the past few thousand years. In 1,000 B.C.E., King David established Jewish control over
Jerusalem. The city fell in and out of other hands during the next couple of
millenia; particularly during the crusades, when Christian crusaders fought
competing Christian and Muslim factions for control of the city. And between
1517 and 1917, the Ottoman Empire—whose official religion was Islam—ruled the
city.
Jerusalem
features prominently in the Hebrew Bible. In the Jewish tradition, it is the
place where Abraham, the first Patriarch of Judaism, nearly sacrificed his son Isaac to God thousands of
years ago. Later, Abraham’s grandson Jacob (who took the name “Israel”) learned
that Jerusalem is “the site that the Lord your God will choose from among all
your tribes, as a place established in His name,” according to the Book of
Deuteronomy.
Jerusalem
was the capital of King David’s Israel in the Hebrew Bible, as well as the city
where David’s son Solomon built his temple. In biblical times, Jewish people
who could not make a pilgrimage to the city were supposed to pray in the
direction of it.
According
to the Quran, Jerusalem was also the last place the Prophet Muhammad visited
before he ascended to the heavens and talked to God in the seventh
century. Before that, he was flown from Mecca to Jerusalem overnight by a
mythical creature.
Both this
miraculous night journey and his communion with God are important events in
Islam. During the night journey, Muhammad was purified in preparation for his
meeting with God. Once in heaven, God told Muhammad that he should recite the
salat, or ritual prayer, 50 times each day. However, Muhammad begged God to
reduce the number to five times a day, which is the current standard for Muslim
prayer.
TURKEY –
APRIL 08: Walls of Constantinople (first half of the 5th century AD) and the
city, Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)
Muhammad
saw his mission as an extension of the Abrahamic traditions of Judaism and
Christianity. Therefore, the first Qibla, or direction in which Muslims should
pray, was Jerusalem (today, Muslims bow towards Mecca). In addition, Islamic
tradition predicts that Jerusalem will play an important role in the future,
naming it as one of the cities where the end of the world will play out.
Though the
world doesn’t appear to be ending there right now, Trump’s
announcement has increased tensions in the region. The president’s
decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital drew praise from Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and
condemnation from Palestinian allies who worried that this move would make it
more difficult to negotiate a long-sought peace treaty between the states.
And in
fact, hours before Trump’s announcement, the Palestinian general delegate to
the U.K. stated that if the U.S. president recognized Jerusalem as the capital
of Israel, he would effectively be
Special
26: Here are the verses in the Quran that Waseem Rizvi wants to delete
Here is a
comprehensive list of the verses, removed by Waseem Rizvi for the 'new Quran.'
The English translation from Arabic of the Quranic verses has been done by
Saheeh International and has been sourced from the Islamic website quran.com.
29 May,
2021,
https://www.opindia.com/2021/05/list-of-26-quranic-verses-that-waseem-rizvi-wants-to-remove/
On Saturday
(March 29), former Shia Central Waqf Board Chairman Waseem Rizvi informed that
he has created a new Islamic
Holy book, after
ommitting 26 verses from the Quran. He has argued that the 26 verses promote
terrorism and has requested PM Modi to authorise the use of his ‘new Quran’ in
all madrasas and Muslim institutes in the country.
It must be
mentioned that Rizvi had earlier filed a
Public Interest Litigation (PIL) before the Supreme Court of India, seeking the removal of the said 26
verses of the Quran. In his PIL, Rizvi stated that these verses are allegedly
used by Islamist Terrorist Groups as justification for attacks on non-believers
and civilians. However, his petition was dismissed for supposedly being
“absolutely frivolous” and fined ₹50,000.
Here is a
comprehensive list of the verses, removed by Waseem Rizvi for the ‘new Quran.’
It must be mentioned that the English translation from Arabic of the Quranic
verses has been done by Saheeh International and has been sourced from the
Islamic website quran.com. In Arabic, the word ‘Surah’ or
‘sura’ is considered equivalent to a chapter in the Quran.
Surah 2
(Al-Baqarah)
Verse 191:
And kill
them [in battle] wherever you overtake them and expel them from wherever they
have expelled you, and fitnah1 is worse than killing. And do
not fight them at al-Masjid al-Ḥarām until they fight you there. But if they
fight you, then kill them. Such is the recompense of the disbelievers.
Surah 3
(Ali ‘Imran)
Verse 151:
We will
cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve for what they have
associated with Allah of which He had not sent down [any] authority.1 And
their refuge will be the Fire, and wretched is the residence of the wrongdoers.
Surah 4
(An-Nisa)
Verse 56:
Indeed,
those who disbelieve in Our verses – We will drive them into a fire. Every time
their skins are roasted through, We will replace them with other skins so they
may taste the punishment. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted in Might and Wise.
Verse 89:
They wish
you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take
from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they
turn away [i.e., refuse], then seize them and kill them [for their betrayal]
wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper,
Verse 101:
And when
you travel throughout the land, there is no blame upon you for shortening the
prayer,1 [especially] if you fear that those who disbelieve may
disrupt [or attack] you.2 Indeed, the disbelievers are ever to
you a clear enemy.
Surah 5
(Al-Ma’idah)
Verse 14:
And from
those who say, “We are Christians” We took their covenant; but they forgot a
portion of that of which they were reminded.1 So We caused
among them2 animosity and hatred until the Day of Resurrection.
And Allah is going to inform them about what they used to do.
Verse 51:
O you who
have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in
fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then
indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.
Verse 57:
O you who
have believed, take not those who have taken your religion in ridicule and
amusement among the ones who were given the Scripture before you nor the
disbelievers as allies. And fear Allah, if you should [truly] be believers.
Surah 8
(Al-Anfal)
Verse 65:
O Prophet,
urge the believers to battle. If there are among you twenty [who are]
steadfast, they will overcome two hundred. And if there are among you one
hundred [who are steadfast], they will overcome a thousand of those who have
disbelieved because they are a people who do not understand.
Verse 69:
So consume
what you have taken of war booty [as being] lawful and good, and fear Allah.
Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.
Surah 9
(At-Tawbah)
Verse 5:
And when
the inviolable months have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you
find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every
place of ambush. But if they should repent, establish prayer, and give zakāh,
let them [go] on their way. Indeed, Allah is Forgiving and Merciful.
Verse 14:
Fight them;
Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you
victory over them and satisfy the breasts [i.e., desires] of a believing
people.
Verse 23:
O you who
have believed, do not take your fathers or your brothers as allies if they have
preferred disbelief over belief. And whoever does so among you – then it is
those who are the wrongdoers.
Verse 28:
O you who
have believed, indeed the polytheists are unclean, so let them not approach
al-Masjid al-Ḥarām after this, their [final] year. And if you fear privation,
Allah will enrich you from His bounty if He wills. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and
Wise.
Verse 29
Fight
against those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not
consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do
not adopt the religion of truth [i.e., Islām] from those who were given the
Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah1 willingly while
they are humbled.
Verse 37:
Indeed, the
postponing [of restriction within sacred months] is an increase in disbelief by
which those who have disbelieved are led [further] astray. They make it1 lawful
one year and unlawful another year to correspond to the number made unlawful by
Allah2 and [thus] make lawful what Allah has made unlawful.
Made pleasing to them is the evil of their deeds; and Allah does not guide the
disbelieving people
Verse 58
And among
them are some who criticize you concerning the [distribution of] charities. If
they are given from them, they approve; but if they are not given from them, at
once they become angry.
Verse 111
Indeed,
Allah has purchased from the believers their lives and their properties [in
exchange] for that they will have Paradise. They fight in the cause of Allah,
so they kill and are killed. [It is] a true promise [binding] upon Him in the
Torah and the Gospel and the Qur’ān. And who is truer to his covenant than
Allah? So rejoice in your transaction which you have contracted. And it is that
which is the great attainment.
Verse 123:
O you who
have believed, fight against those adjacent to you of the disbelievers and let
them find in you harshness. And know that Allah is with the righteous.
Surah 21
(Al-Anbya)
Verse 98:
Indeed, you
[disbelievers] and what you worship other than Allah are the firewood of Hell.
You will be coming to [enter] it.
Surah 32
(As-Sajdah)
Verse 22:
And who is
more unjust than one who is reminded of the verses of his Lord; then he turns
away from them? Indeed We, from the criminals, will take retribution.
Surah 33
(Al-Ahzab)
Verse 61:
Accursed wherever they are found, [being] seized and massacred completely.
Surah 41
(Fussilat)
Verse 27:
But We will
surely cause those who disbelieve to taste a severe punishment, and We will
surely recompense them for the worst of what they had been doing.
Verse 28:
That is the
recompense of the enemies of Allah – the Fire. For them therein is the home of
eternity as recompense for what they, of Our verses, were rejecting.
Surah 48
(Al-Fath)
Verse 20:
Allah has promised you much booty that you will take [in the future] and has
hastened for you this [victory] and withheld the hands of people from you –
that it may be a sign for the believers and [that] He may guide you to a
straight path.
Surah 66
(At-Tahrim)
Verse 9: O
Prophet, strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be harsh upon
them. And their refuge is Hell, and wretched is the destination.
Waseem
Rizvi bats for removal of 26 verses from the Quran
The former
Shia Central Waqf Board Chairman had emphasised that due to the extreme
interpretations of the 26 verses of the Holy book, Islam was identified with
militancy, fundamentalism, extremism, and terrorism. He has been the subject of
several FIRs and death threats. The National Commission for Minorities
also demanded an unconditional apology from Waseem
Rizvi. On March 20, hundreds of Muslims gathered at the Jama Masjid in the National
Capital to protest against him.
In his own
words, Waseem Rizvi added, “These verses are like poison in the raw mind of
young children in the name of the message of Allah, which leads him to a
radical mindset and from his early age when they become young, they hate people
of other religions because of their mindset, and many youths get involved with
terrorist organizations in some way under this mentality, the wrong messages of
Allah Has been filled in the name of Islam.”
